The number of deaths per day is rising again in Italy

When Italy announced 793 new deaths last Saturday, it was the highest note so far during the corona crisis. The days following, however, the number for each individual day has gradually decreased, which could be interpreted as a small, relative brightening of the situation.

On Tuesday, the day count rises again: An additional 743 corona-infected persons have died in the country.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte hopes in the near future to take back the strict restrictions that the country has been living in recent weeks. At the same time, the penalties for those who violate the rules are further tightened: to go against quarantine rules and the like can be punished with fines of up to the equivalent of SEK 30,000, according to Conte.

Civil Defense Authority chief Angelo Borrelli has backed the government's strict measures, saying that the infection rate may well be about ten times higher than the confirmed figures reported.

A major problem was that people continued to live their lives in a way that helped to escalate the situation, according to Borrelli. He points, among other things, to a football match in Milan, where Atalanta and Valencia met in the Champions League on February 19, as a clear mistake. 40,000 people attended.

- We can now say, when we look back, that it was a potential detonator, says Angelo Borrelli.

Twenty-four corona-infected doctors have so far passed away, according to an Italian medical association, which reserves that all cases are not necessarily directly linked to the virus.

"Our forces are running out," said Romano Paolucci, a retired doctor who has moved in again to help fight the virus outbreak, to Reuters.

- We have insufficient resources and especially staff for now, to top it all, the staff is also starting to fall ill.

He works at Oglio Po Hospital outside Cremona, one of the worst-hit places in the virus-ravaged region of Lombardy. 25 of the hospital's 90 doctors have been infected by the virus and a total of one fifth of all employees have been tested positive, says hospital manager Daniela Ferrari.

A similar situation exists in a number of other hospitals in the country.

Probably a lack of protective equipment at the beginning of the outbreak contributed to the large spread among the health care professionals - who in turn are feared to have spread the infection further before discovering that they carried the virus.